Process of Job Evaluation
January 16, 2024 2024-01-16 9:33Process of Job Evaluation
Process of Job Evaluation
- Process of job evaluation
- Learning outcome
After reading this article, you shall be able to:
- Know the concept of Job Evaluation
- Understand the objectives of Job Evaluation
- Comprehend the process of Job Evaluation
- Enumerate the advantages and disadvantages of Job Evaluation
- Know the methods of Job Evaluation
- Comprehend the essentials for the success of a Job Evaluation Program
- Introduction
Job evaluation is a method used for deciding the comparative worth of each job in the organization. The basic purpose of assessing the value of each job against another is to fix up the pay scale for each of these jobs. Job evaluation provides a critical input for the grading of jobs in the organization in an orderly and acceptable form. Job grading in turn helps the organization in determining the pay grades for different categories of job. The essence of job evaluation is the assessment of the efforts required to perform the job. Usually, jobs are evaluated on the basis of the duties, responsibilities, work pressures and contribution of each job to organizational goal accomplishment.
Simply state job evaluation is the classification of jobs according to rank in an organization. It attempts to compare the relative intrinsic value of jobs within an organization.
International Labor Office (ILO) defined Job evaluation as an effort to decide and make a comparison of the needs which the usual performance of a particular job makes on average workers, without taking into account the personal abilities of the related workers
Wendell French defines job evaluation as a process engaged in establishing the comparative worth of different jobs in an organization, so that differential wages are fixed for jobs of different value. The comparative worth of a job suggests relative value created on the basis of responsibility, skill, effort and working conditions.
- Evaluation
- Understand the objectives Job Evaluation
- Comprehend the process of Job Evaluation
- Understand the Advantages and Disadvantages of Job Evaluation
- Comprehend the Job Evaluation Methods
- Become award of the essentials for the success of job evaluation program
- Know the limitations of Job Evaluation.
The essence of many definitions of job evaluation is the determination of the comparative value of each job in the organization.
- Objectives of Job Evaluation
The major objective of job evaluation is to establish comparative worth of various jobs in an organization to serve as a basis for developing a salary structure characterized by equity or fairness. An ILO Report states that the aim of the most of systems of job evaluation is to determine, on agreed logical basis, the comparative values of various jobs in a plant. It aims at deciding the comparative significance of a job. The guideline of any job evaluation effort is that of depicting and estimating officially the worth of various jobs in the enterprises in terms of various indicators. The objectives of job evaluation may be enumerated as:
- Ascertain wage differentials characterized by equity between different jobs in the organization.
- To get rid of wage inequalities.
- To be sure that similar wages are paid for the like work.
- Construct a foundation for implementing incentives
- To decide a reference point for settling personal grievances relating to wage rates.
- Make available information for the purposes of organization of work, selection of employees, placement, training and other similar issues.
- To determine a benchmark for making organization career planning.
- Establish a procedure which serves as a standard for ascertaining the relative value of each job.
- Job Evaluation Process
Though the usual objectives of job evaluation is to ascertain officially the relative worth of jobs in an enterprise, there is no common procedure of job evaluation all organizations may follow. As such, the job evaluation procedure differs from organization to organization.
5.1 Establish Jobs to be assessed:
The establishment of jobs to be assessed under the evaluation process is the beginning point of job evaluation. It is usually complex for an organization to assess entire jobs of the organization. It, therefore, selects a few main jobs which can be representative of a group of similar jobs for job evaluation purposes. Having identified jobs for evaluation, the next stage is the deciding of factors to be evaluated in a job. The evaluator may evaluate one or more the job factors like physical efforts, mental efforts, concentration, communication and leadership skills, education and experience, job complexity and pressure. However, the need for job factor identification may not arise if the evaluator settles for paired comparison in which ‘whose man to whole man’ comparison is done.
5.2 Collecting job information
The next phase in the process of job analysis is the collection of essential information about the job being assessed.. For this purpose the techniques like interviews, questionnaire and observation may be used addition to sheets of job description At this stage, the evaluator need to satisfy himself entirely about the adequateness of information gathered for assessing the value of the job. Thus, the evaluators should undertake a broad analysis of all the information available with them.
5.3 Decision on ranking of job
An analysis of all the pertinent information about the job is carried. Then, the evaluator assesses the degree of the presence or absence of chosen factors in the jobs. Based on the findings of such assessment, the evaluator establishes the rating of each job. Since identical factors are evaluated in the process, the ratings are indicative of the relative worth of a job when compared to other jobs in the organization.
5.4 Benchmarking job:
The ground objective of job evaluation is to evolve pay grades for each kind of jobs. In this connection it is essential for an organization to understand the payments made by other organizations for identical jobs. However, it may not be feasible for an organization to ascertain the comparative pay scales of all the jobs in the organization. Therefore, the persons responsible for job evaluation may select a few jobs usually found in every organization and are comparable in nature. These jobs are commonly known as benchmark jobs which serve as measurements for deciding the pays of all other jobs in the organization.
5.5 Wage and Salary Surveys:
An organization carries out a survey of pay scales of the jobs regarded as benchmark in other organizations in the industry. An organization may carry out a salary surveys in a formal or informal way, may be either a direct survey to collect pertinent information or published reports of professional agencies or magazines may be used. The monetary equivalent of each job is decided on the basis of such survey. Informal survey such as telephonic surveys, newspapers and the internet survey for may be conducted by several organizations for salary surveys.
5.6 Periodic Review and Feedback
Developments taking place in the outer environment affect the organizations on a continuous basis and also create changes in the internal environment. For instance, technological developments affect the job features and needs deeply. As a result, organizations are compelled to reconsider the jobs at periodic at recurring intervals of time to decide their value in the transformed context. Feedback should also be gathered from diverse stakeholders like job holders, supervisors, managers and trade unions about the various facets of job evaluation to regularly grow the job evaluation process.
- Merits and Demerits of job evaluation:
According to an ILO publication job evaluation is advantageous for the following reasons:
Job evaluation is a process involving logic and objective method which assists in evolving a just, fair and holding firmly wage and salary structure based on the comparative value of jobs in an organization.
By removing wage differentials within the organization, job evaluation renders assistance for reducing contradiction between labor and management which in turn helps in encouraging agreeable relations between them.
- Job evaluation makes wage administration less complicated by bringing the quality of being uniform in wage rates.
- It makes a logical ground for negotiations of wage and collective bargaining.
- In the case of new jobs, job evaluation makes spotting into the existing wage and salary structure.
- In the modem times, performance is dependent more on the machines than on the worker himself/herself. In such cases, job evaluation gives the realistic basis for fixing of wages.
- The information generated by job evaluation may also be applied for up-gradation of procedures of selection, transfer and promotion on the basis of relative job requirements.
- Job evaluation evaluates the job and not the job performer. Organizations have different areas of specializations. Job evaluation assists in ranking all the jobs so as to fix the wages and salary and removing uncertainty in them.
Besides many advantages, job evaluation undergoes the following drawbacks:
- Job evaluation is under domination of human error and personal judgment. While there is no approved list of factors to be taken into account for job evaluation, there are some factors that cannot be gauged exactly,
- Job evaluation fixes variation between wages. The jobs ranking high as compared with the market are those of junior, nurse and typist, while craft rates are comparatively low. An evaluation plan renders services to weaker groups better than by the market.
- The first time application of job evaluation in an organization generates doubts in the minds of workers whose jobs are subjected to collective bargaining for determining wage rates.
- Job evaluation methods being lacking in scientific basis are often looked upon with doubts about the effectiveness of ways of job evaluation.
- Job evaluation is a time taking process needing specialized technical personnel to carry it out and, thus, is likely to be costly as well.
- Job evaluation is not found suitable for fixing the comparative value of the skill-oriented managerial jobs which cannot be measured in quantitative terms.
- Given the changes in job contents and work conditions, periodic evaluation of jobs is essential. This is not ever so easy and simple.
- Job evaluation causes considerable modifications in wage and salary structure. This, in turn, creates financial pressure on organization.
- Job Evaluation Methods
Most wage paying organizations apply job evaluation.
7.1 The ranking method
The person evaluating the job ordinarily gives ranks to different jobs. However, the effort to decide the factors critical to the each job is not made at this stage. As an accepted alternative, an overarching act of judgment is done concerning the comparative value of each job, and the job is given a position in hierarchy. In order of their value from the easiest to the most complex or in the reverse order, all the jobs are ranked. The duties, responsibilities and demands on the job holder are the parameters of judging the significance of order of jobs. Since difficulties in ranking a number of jobs are experienced, the method of paired comparison ranking is often resorted to. This technique enables decisions about the comparative worth of one or two jobs at one time. Since each job is compared with every other job, the number of comparisons increases fast when a job is added to the list of comparisons. Generally accepted guidelines are not available to determine elements or factors to be included in the list of factors the organization thinks valuable. Thus, there are no yardsticks for evaluating the value of the job and the assumptions of the rankers ranking never come to the fore. There is, thus, a risk that the subjectivity creeps into the ranking. The impressions dominate the ranking rather than objective information available.
7.2 Grading Method
The entire job is the basis of job grading technique. An organized body or a committee of job evaluator decides job grades or class of a job. A group of different jobs involving identical difficulty needing similar skills to perform constitutes a job grade. The information obtained from job analysis becomes the basis of job grade. The job grades are placed in proper order of their importance as a schedule. The jobs requiring more physical effort and strict supervision but little responsibility fall in the lowest job grade Each higher grade job involves more of skill and responsibility with decreasing supervision.
7.3 Point Method
The point method uses several factors common to the job under evaluation. Scales divided into point distances are used to determine the degree to which these factors are present in a given job. Once all the scales have been applied to each job being studies, the points chosen for each scale are added to provide a total for each job. The sub of points determines the relative worth of the job. The scales are used to measure the job and not the job incumbent.
7.4 The Factor Comparison Method
This method begins with the selection of factors such as mental requirements, skills, physical exertion, responsibility, and job conditions. These factors are assumed to be constant for all the jobs. Each factor is ranked individually with other jobs. For example, all the jobs may be compared first by the factor physical requirements, responsibility, and working conditions are ranked. Thus, a job may rank near the top in skills but low in physical requirements. Total point values are then assigned to each factor. The relative worth of a job is then obtained by adding together all the point values.
This method facilitates that jobs of different nature, for example, manual, clerical and supervisory- may be assessed with the same factors. However, this method is difficult and expensive.
7.5 Paired Comparison
In this method, each job is individually compared with every other job in the organization. If, during the comparison, a job is found to have more value than another, it is assigned some reward points, and at the end of the multiple comparisons, ranking are done on the basis of aggregate scores. In the paired comparison method too, a job described statement is an essential document for determining the relative worth of each job. The paired comparison method is simply and easy to compare one job with another. Each job gets equal attention in the multiple pair comparisons and thus, better consistency is established in the job grading. However, it is a subjective process as the whole job is compared with another whose job and, as such, the unique job characteristics are overlooked in the comparisons. It is difficult to apply this method if there are a large number of jobs as multiple comparisons would involve numerous computations. Thus, the rank method, grading, point and factor comparison methods are most commonly used for job evaluation.
- Essentials for the Success of a Job Evaluation Program
The following are the essentials for the success of a job evaluation program:
- Compensable factors should represent all the major aspects of job content. Compensable factors selected should not involve excessive overlapping, are clearly defined and measured and easily understood by employees and administrators; and not cause extensive installation or administrative cost; and be selected with legal consideration in mind.
- Operating managers should be convinced about the techniques and program of job evaluation, are trained in determining and revising the wages.
- All the employees are furnished complete information regarding job evaluation techniques and programs.
- All groups and grades of employees should be covered by the job evaluation program.
- The program of and techniques selected for job evaluation should be easy to understand by all the employees.
- Trade unions acceptance and support to the program should be obtained.
- Limitations of Job Evaluation
- The job evaluation has certain limitations. Some important limitations are described below:
- The inaccuracy of information in the job description makes the job evaluation results inaccurate.
- The attitudes of union leaders towards job evaluation may be favorable or unfavorable. In several cases it may not be supportive.
- Supervisors, management and employees, are required to understand, accept, and support the job evaluation system for its effective working.
- The challenges of a job evaluation program are also in choosing supervisors and other managers for participation in job evaluation groups and in getting their commitment to the process. Broad participation is necessary for informed decisions and acceptance in the organization; on the other hand, large committees are expensive and sometimes unwieldy.
Summary
- Job evaluation is the process of determining the comparative worth of jobs in order to determine. Job evaluation assists to establish internal equity between various jobs defined.
- Factors such as responsibilities, skill, effort and working conditions determine the relative worth of a job.
- A job evaluation process seeks to answer questions such as which jobs are to be evaluated, who should evaluate the jobs, what training do the evaluators need and how much time is involved?
- The procedure of job evaluation includes preparation of job description, selection and preparation of a job evaluation plan, job classification putting the job evaluation program into functioning and maintenance of the program.
- Important methods of job evaluation are ranking method, job grading, point method, and the factor comparison method.
- The job ranking method arranges jobs on the basis of the importance of the jobs in terms of duties and responsibilities.
- The grading method slots jobs into pre established grade. Higher rated grades demand more responsibilities, tougher working conditions and varied job duties.
- The factor comparison system evaluates jobs on a factor by factory basis against important jobs within an organization.